Minister of National Defence video message for International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Video / March 21, 2021

Transcript

Today we mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

It’s an opportunity for us all to check our judgments, convictions and beliefs.

Our biases are not always obvious. Sometimes they are implicit and unconscious.

They can affect our decision-making and our actions, without us even knowing they’re there.

So we need to challenge ourselves. To think critically about our beliefs, and why we make the judgments that we do.

Unconscious biases can cause serious harm to those around us.

And addressing these behaviours is key to building a respectful and inclusive society.

That starts with ensuring diverse voices are heard and represented at all levels of our organization.

That’s why we established an Anti-racism taskforce to evaluate how we hire and promote. And it’s why we launched the Visible Minority Recruitment process, to increase representation at the executive level.

Everyone should feel comfortable coming to work as their authentic selves.

That’s the environment we’re striving for within the Defence Team.

We want our people to feel free to express themselves…

And to share their unique perspectives, to help inform what we say and do as an organization.

We need individuals at every level to raise their voices and play an active role in the fight against racism and white supremacy.

We need to be anti-racist, and make systemic changes as an organization.

That means understanding that racism is intersectional and impacts people across all identity factors. It means educating ourselves about the impacts of micro and macro aggressions. And it means speaking up in our personal circles.

We need strong leaders to set the tone, take swift decisive action against all forms of hateful conduct, and be prepared to dismantle existing systems that are creating harm.

When people come forward and share their experiences of racism, they must be supported. It is up to leaders to stop the immediate harm, and prevent future injury.

Last year, we released a new policy on hateful conduct. It was followed by orders from the Army, Navy, and Air Force spelling out concretely how they intended to prevent it, and what measures they would take when it occurred.

And in December, we stood up an Anti-Racism Secretariat and launched an Advisory Panel on systemic racism and discrimination, to help root out these behaviours from our organization.

We’ve seen what can happen when racism and discrimination are left unchallenged.

And we know that these behaviours are not isolated to one person or incident – they’re woven into the fabric of our organizations, our communities, and our systems.

Eliminating racial discrimination requires a whole-of-nation effort.

From individual Canadians, to our institutions, to our Government…

We must all play a role in creating a society that challenges and defeats prejudice.

We must all demand more from ourselves and from each other.

And we must all ask ourselves, what concrete actions we can take today to help break these barriers, and build a better tomorrow.

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